Over the weekend I visited The White Cube Galley in Berdmondsey. The gallery, designed by Berlin-based architects Casper Mueller Kneer, consists of three major exhibition spaces as well as private rooms, office space and a warehouse etc. I really like this space and they usually have interesting exhibitions, this time was not the exception.

Taking over The South Gallery, welsh artist Cerith Wyn Evans shows an arrangement of three neon sculptures suspended from the ceiling. These sculptures reference arm movements and footsteps of the Japanese Noh theatre, a topic Wyn  Evans has used on previous works (Neon forms [after Noh I, II and III], all 2015). The artist’s idea is to turn something fluid and brief into something solid and permanent, a language unique to Wyn Evan’s artistic practice which focuses on how ideas can be communicated through form.

A fourth neon piece, The Illuminating Gas…(after Oculist Witnesses) references Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915-23) and its circular forms. 

Spread among the space are palm trees placed on top of turntables that rotate imperceptibly at different velocities and directions to create a natural counterpoint to the artificial glow of the neon sculptures. Meanwhile, a soundtrack emitted from a large sculpture made up of 19 glass flutes, each one connected to a long tube suspended from the ceiling emits a breath-like sound that reverberates through the whole space.

In the other rooms Robert Irwin shows 2 x 2 x 2 x 2, a group of three different works including fluorescent tubes and transparent plastic columns. The two columns in the middle of the 9 x 9 x 9 gallery room are almost invisible, it is while you move and walk around them that they become present as they obstruct or frame the surroundings. Taking Irwin’s own words: ‘You don’t think about whether it’s art or not art. It’s just about what you’re seeing or not seeing.’

The exhibition is on until 15^th November and I really recommend a visit, both artists engage in different ways with our senses and challenge our perception of the space using light as a strong communication media.

http://whitecube.com/exhibitions/

@crisescofet #whitecubegallery #cerithwynevans #robertirwin #neonlights #art